Entertainment

BitTorrent Surges to 100 Million Active Users

BitTorrent, the company responsible for file-sharing tools BitTorrent Mainline and µTorrent, disclosed Monday that 100 million people are using the aforementioned software products per month.

In addition to this attention-grabbing number (which only applies to BitTorrent's official clients — there are many more unofficial tools out there), BitTorrent announced a few more milestones: 1) More than 20 million people use the service per day, on average, 2) The client is downloaded an average of 400,000 times per day, 3) Clients check in from more than 220 countries every day, 4) Said clients access the software in 52 languages.

We've reached out to BitTorrent to ask to what they think has spurred this growth and will update this post with any further information.

In common parlance, BitTorrent is somewhat synonymous with piracy (hence our belief that the iPhone app iControlbits will be pulled from the Apple App Store), but the company itself has been fighting to legitimize its name of late by launching an Artists Spotlight Program and distributing a number of films.

Still, one has to wonder how many of those 100 million monthly users are staying on the straight and narrow when it comes to BitTorrent usage.

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